‘Suicide Drones’ and the Spoils of War: Israeli arms manufacturers look to cash in on the war in Gaza

Three weeks after Israel’s latest assault on the Gaza Strip concluded, Israeli military and political leaders attended a conference next to Ben Gurion Airport to sell the successes of what Israel dubbed Operation Protective Edge, which killed more than 2,200 Palestinians including 521 children. The annual conference, named “Israel Unmanned Systems 2014,” took place in business-as-usual atmosphere — even with a complimentary beer keg. But the fare was anything but humdrum. Among the offerings were suicide drones, “loitering munitions” that need to explode; a 16-year-old showing off high-tech robots designed by fellow high schoolers and future drone makers; and “premature” weapons, armaments that have not been fully tested before they are used on a live Palestinian population. Such is Israel the military power.

The conference showcased the latest drone technology and previewed the industry’s prospects to a few hundred international buyers, vendors, and military figures. Inside a private conference room, political and industry leaders gave presentations — speaking in military euphemisms that avoided any uncomfortable references to the humanitarian catastrophe resulting from the 51-day bombing campaign.

Elad Aharonson, General Manager of the Israeli weapons company Elbit Systems’ Unmanned Systems Division, praised the “relative advantage” Israel enjoys due to the “intimate ties” between the “developers and users” of the military industry. “In some cases, we must admit these are the same people and that is a great advantage,” Aharonson said.

Suicide Drones

Lieutenant Colonel Itzhar Jona, who heads Israel Aerospace Industries, spoke about “loitering munitions” — what he called a “politically correct” name for Suicide Drones. They are a hybrid of drone and missile technology that have “autonomous and partially autonomous” elements, and are “launched like a missile, fly like an UAV [unmanned aerial vehicle],” and once they identify a target, revert to “attack like a missile.” Jona called the Suicide Drone a “UAV that thinks and decides for itself,” then added, “If you [the operator] aren’t totally clear on the logic, it can even surprise you.”

Jona praised the advantage of the Suicide Drone because the operator “doesn’t have to bring it home or deal with all sorts of dilemmas.” The Suicide Drone will quickly find a target using its internal logic, which Jona explained in this way: “It carries a warhead that eventually needs to explode. There needs to be a target at the end that will want to explode. Or it won’t want to and we will help it explode.”

Still Undergoing Test Flights

Within 48 hours of the first airstrikes of Operation Protective Edge last July, the military began operating the Hermes 900, nicknamed the “star” of Israel’s arsenal of drones. Made by the Israeli weapons giant Elbit Systems, the drone was “still undergoing test flights” when it was first deployed. The assault presented an opportunity to expedite the testing process by launching strikes on Gaza’s captive population — which allows Israel weapons makers to market their products as “combat proven.” This places the Israeli brand squarely at the top of the arms industry.

This phenomenon is nothing new. Colonel Erez Karabiti, who heads the Israeli Air Force’s UAV division, admitted implementation of premature weapons systems has been the norm for at least 15 years — what he referred to as the “pre-standard era.” Though he praised the benefits of Israel’s use of premature weapons because it “brings results”, he suggested that in the future, the Israeli arms industry should adhere to testing standards in order to ensure reliability, effectiveness and, “obviously to sell” the weapons.

Another aspect of Operation Protective Edge was the widespread use of Sky Rider mini-drones by ground forces — part of a program that Israeli troops pushed for and was first implemented in the Second Lebanon War in 2006. “Every brigade — even the reserves — got at least two air vehicles and flew them nonstop; at the same time,” the Israeli military’s chief artillery officer, Brigadier General Roy Riftin told a reporter.

Battlefield-Proven

Rami Shmuely, CEO of RT Technologies, which makes Aerostat surveillance balloons, informed me that in addition to 13 systems flying around the Gaza Strip, the company has a subsidiary at Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas. Additionally, the US army purchased surveillance systems from RT for use in Afghanistan. Shmuely explained that the United States is “the most promising market in the world.”

Drew Marks, from ESC BAZ, which makes unmanned surveillance systems, said that the Israeli company sells to governments and militaries in Europe, Asia and Africa. He continued, “We sell to other markets — friends in Asia. I can’t tell you where exactly but I can tell you Asian countries — southeast Asian countries. People can maybe understand where it is.”

Marks boasted that a video that showed Palestinian fighters emerging from the sea to attack an Israeli military base, which was recently revealed to be only partial, “was taken by this system right here.” He added, “We call it battlefield-proven!”

Drone Youth

In front of the trade show was a team of Israeli high school students who were being groomed as part of the next generation of drone engineers and electricians. They operated remote-controlled robots designed to launch large yoga balls into a basket at a given height and distance. Their team was called FIRST Israel, part of an international competition that has been featured on National Geographic’s television channel.

There I met Omer Golan-Kaplan, 16, who told me, “I’m sure at least half of the people who participate in the project will go to make electronic devices [in the military].” As for herself, Golan-Kaplan was torn between spending her military service in a unit working with electronics, or being “a tank teacher or a shooting teacher.” “I really want to get to know the cool stuff.” She added, “I’m still young to know what I want to do with my life.”

Nothing illustrated the complete militarization of the Israeli society so much as the interaction with Crosslab Networks (XLN). XLN is a project of the Reut Institute, an Israeli national security and socioeconomic policy think tank that has called on the Israeli government to “sabotage” and “attack” that global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement or what it described as an international Delegitimization Network. Under the leadership of former Reut Institute CEO Roy Keidar, XLN creates centers for 3D printing and other advanced technologies which are becoming an integral part of Israel’s ability to quickly design and build weapons. Keidar admitted that children as young as 14 were instrumental in building a mini-copter that could navigate the network of tunnels that Palestinian resistance groups had constructed.

“You wouldn’t believe who is leading who. I’ve got 14-year-olds working on sensors and writing codes so fast,” Keidar said. “That’s the future!”

Footage shot by Dan Cohen and Lia Tarachansky with thanks to Ronnie Barkan for translation.

About Dan Cohen

Dan Cohen is an independent journalist and filmmaker based in Palestine. He tweets at @dancohen3000.

Greetings,
…New weaponry….
This is what conquerors do, they look to find toys to advance their aims.
When the Hykos invaded the upper nile, they brought in the Warrior Chariot which was devasting to the Egyptians, but they inproved on this new item & eventually used it to their own advantage.
The Falesteeni, Hamas, Hizbollah & Iran will get this new technology using it against Zionistan & they start a new round of killings.
When will Zionistan learn that they can’t evaporate millions in & outside of the country?
ziusudra
PS The Vietnamese beat the high tech of ours with guerrilla tactics that they used against invaders 400 yrs. earlier!

PABELMONT- “This weapons testing as a purpose (maybe THE purpose) of all that killing.”

There are historical precedents. For example, the atomic bombs were dropped on Japan even as Japan was attempting to negotiate terms of surrender. Also, the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima had a uranium core, whereas, the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki had a plutonium core.

yeah,one of the people interviewed for the ‘makers’, included high school kids field testing in gaza. it’s not every society that has a local laboratory of live victims to test their weapons/inventions on.

“It carries a warhead that eventually needs to explode. There needs to be a target at the end that will want to explode. Or it won’t want to and we will help it explode.”

I think I am going to be sick. How do these people sleep at night? And 14-year-olds working on codes is a very sad future. But I guess you have to get them at a young age if you want to turn them into perfect military bots.

I don’t see the point in concentrating on the drones.
If the target is innocent civilians – it shouldn’t be attacked, regardless of whether the aircraft is manned or unmanned.
If the target is a legitimate military target – there certainly are advantages to using drones.

@ jon s “If the target is innocent civilians – it shouldn’t be attacked, regardless of whether the aircraft is manned or unmanned.
If the target is a legitimate military target – there certainly are advantages to using drones”

The advantages are having a war machine theoretically without the need for having any personnel at risk. It does however extend the war zone to wherever they’re operated from.

Already by Israel’s own criteria, where arms are designed, manufactured, sold, on route to or even thought of being used, are legitimate military targets.

As for your collateral theory. It’s military drivel. Nonsense. There is no Internationally accepted formula for collateral. Civilians are factored into the military objective equation at the whim of the assailants and their human slaughtering devices of choice are then purposefully dispatched knowing innocent civilians will inevitably be killed, beheaded, dis-disemboweled, crippled, burned, maimed, disfigured, orphaned and quite possibly their dwellings will be completely obliterated

>> jon s: If the target is innocent civilians – it shouldn’t be attacked, regardless of whether the aircraft is manned or unmanned. If the target is a legitimate military target – there certainly are advantages to using drones.

Sounds great. So who gets to decide what constitutes legitimate and illegitimate targets? And it’s acceptable for all parties to acquire and use drones, yes?

maybe the baker boys were victims of a heat sensored 1st time field tested weapon. i wonder how jack or jon would feel if weapons were field tested for the first time on little jewish kids? a few kids die to test it out, ultimately saves lives and causes less collateral damage than other munitions. Deal with it, just a few slaughtered jewish children, no biggie. when the target is innocent kids – it shouldn’t be attacked, but heck you win a few you loose a few. but at least when you’re buying weapons tested on jewish children, you know it’s other kids dying first. like lab rats, you loose a few to make sure the product is field tested.

Yeah Annie and it wouldn’t be genocide if say 400 Jewish kids were killed in testing because the population would still be growing and they should really just get with the program because it would be good for business and prosperity and there would be no need to get hung up over individual rights when the interests of the group as a whole are far more important. And if the economy grew by say 3% on the back of 400 kids what’s not to like ?

“If the target is a legitimate military target – there certainly are advantages to using drones.”-

Who decides whether targets are legit or not? Usually Jews in uniform in Erez Israel.

Drones are tech and tech comes with lots of downsides.
Maybe if Israel had to face the consequences of its wars it wouldn’t be so trigger happy.
Drones are better than infantry at killing but they don’t address the chaos of war or the flaws in war modeling.
Did anyone in the Kirya expect BGA to be targeted in July ? Of course not.

And the Palestinians, too…right? I mean, Zio-supremacists are always insisting that there must be balance, so it wouldn’t make sense for Israel to be the sole party to make these determinations…right? ;-)

Indeed, using the Israeli criteria … Under which one only has to be suspected of thinking of using a weapon against the Palestinians and Palestine would have the right to enter Israel or the illegal settlement of the suspect and without trial bulldoze the family home, kill, maim, arrest, incarcerate relatives, children etc etc, WITH COMPLETE IMPUNITY!!!

Ahhhh….how touching…Jackdaw cares about “collateral damage”. I mean, killing scores of people (aside from the du jour evil KHAMAS militant) rather than hundreds at a time must truly be the mark of a true humanitarian……..

2) The shrapnel created by ‘pin point accurately delivered’ explosives is not pin point accurate. It can and does indiscriminately dis-disembowel, burn, disfigure, maim for life, behead, slaughter any living thing in its path. The more powerful the better selling point from a military POV

BTW An old fashioned beheading is far cheaper, far more accurate and there’s no collateral at all. Clean up afterwards with a mop & bucket or two of water.

@talknic ” Civilians are factored into the military objective equation at the whim of the assailants and their human slaughtering devices of choice”

Indeed. People who use the phrase collateral damage in the context that it is accidental or unintentional are deluded. It is just another form of murder/killing where the victims don’t even rate the warrant of mention. Disgusting really.

Sometimes for cannot be avoided but all to often it is the first resort.

Drone and other arms testing for both the US and Israel was done in good part in south Lebanon on human targets until 2000 when the Israelis were kicked out. It picked up again in 2006 in Lebanon with the war and in Gaza.

From the Guardian in 2006 discussing Israel’s use of DIME bombs:

“Doctors in Gaza have reported previously unseen injuries from Israeli weapons that cause severe burning and deep internal wounds often resulting in amputations or death.
The injuries were first seen in July, when the Israeli military launched a series of operations in Gaza following the capture of an Israeli soldier by Palestinian militants.

Doctors said that, unlike traditional combat injuries from shells or bullets, there were no large shrapnel pieces found in the patients’ bodies and there appeared to be a “dusting” on severely damaged internal organs.

“Bodies arrived severely fragmented, melted and disfigured,” said Jumaa Saqa’a, a doctor at Shifa hospital, the main casualty hospital in Gaza City. “We found internal burning of organs, while externally there were minute pieces of shrapnel. When we opened many of the injured people we found dusting on the internal organs.”…

Oy vey, Bibi would be out already holding up yet another cartoon, and whining to the world about how mean Iran was to poor innocent Israel. It is all one sided garbage from Israel.
No one should get carried away by the hypocrisy by now. The entire world can see it, except for the US of course, they see it, but pretend it is not there.

“On December 10, Human Rights Day, a federal magistrate found Georgia Walker of Kansas City, Missouri and Kathy Kelly of Chicago, Illinois guilty of criminal trespass to a military installation. On June 1, the women attempted to deliver a loaf of bread and a citizens’ indictment of drone warfare to authorities at Whiteman Air Force Base. Judge Matt Whitworth sentenced Kelly to three months in prison and Walker to one year of supervised probation. Kelly will begin her prison sentence in January.

In testimony, Kelly, who recently returned from Afghanistan, recounted her conversation with an Afghan mother whose son, a recent police academy graduate, was killed by a drone as he sat with colleagues in a garden. “I’m educated and humbled by experiences talking with people who’ve been trapped and impoverished by U.S. warfare,” said Kelly. “The U.S. prison system also traps and impoverishes people. In coming months, I’ll surely learn more about who goes to prison and why.”

During sentencing, prosecution attorneys asked that Walker be sentenced to five years of probation and banned from going within 500 feet of any military base. ”

RE: The Suicide Drone will quickly find a target using its internal logic, which Jona explained in this way: “It carries a warhead that eventually needs to explode. There needs to be a target at the end that will want to explode. Or it won’t want to and we will help it explode.”

MY COMMENT: Way kewl! So, since the warhead “eventually needs to explode” it will “quickly find a target” (using its manly internal logic, as opposed to female intuition), and then it will “Git Er Done” via an explosion akin to a one and only self-consuming climax of sorts (e.g. Nelson Rockefeller’s final climax; but also “like a virgin, for the very first time”; and a bit like a honey bee stinging and then dying).

The IDF needs war because that is what it does. The internal logic of Zionism. Then they built up war industries around the urge. They redesigned international law to fit the need. They adopted apartheid, again for the same reason. War = prosperity

I kept the faith and I kept voting
Not for the iron fist but for the helping hand
For theirs is a land with a wall around it
And mine is a faith in my fellow man
Theirs is a land of hope and glory
Mine is the green field and the factory floor
Theirs are the skies all dark with bombers

This is a great site for sharing and the power of the whole is much greater than the sum of the parts.

I saw a quote by an insightful IDF walla a while ago who said he joined in idealism but soon figured out that as they had the weapons they sought out the confrontations.
And that is very sad because they had to reengineer their society to feed this .

P.S. A name like “The Suicide Drone” would be a real “turn off” for the Pentagon because it might call attention to the high suicide rate for the vets who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. What about Skyhawke®? Or, Albatross®? Redeemer®, perhaps? Righteous Avenger®? Urgent Avenger®? Earnest Avenger®? Erstwhile Avenger®?

My brother volunteered to join the Israeli army in 1981 (biggest regret of his life and yes he was a f****g idiot. He agrees with that statement!) Unluckily for him his general, Ariel Sharon, sent him and his Golani brigade into Lebanon in 1982. He told me that he and his comrades spent much time testing out new weapons on completely innocent targets such as apartment buildings, moving cars or in fact anything that could be loosely justified as a legitimate target. All you need to do is some kind of so called intelligence that “terrorists” were operating there or nearby. Then you just pressed the button and watched the explosive results,knowing full well that innocent men, women, children and babies would most probably be killed, maimed, disemboweled, beheaded, dismembered or burned. But hey, he was just following orders. And in the beginning he actually believed them….Until the truth hit home. I suppose these days it’s even easier because the technology is so advanced you can probably operate one of these suicide drones sitting on the toilet in an upmarket tel aviv apartment directly from your laptop. Definitely easier than digging a trench in the sand around the outskirts of Beirut

Since then I fully understood the business side of war. Before you can sell anything you need some facts and statistics. The only way to get them for military merchandise is to actually use them for the purpose they were intended. Then you can sell them. After all, who wants to buy something that hasn’t been tested in exactly the way it was designed for? When you buy a new car you would assume that it’s been tested on all types of real roads and terrain. Same with stuff that’s been designed to kill people.

Lebanon, operation Cast Death, Pillar of Killing and Protective Slaughter were all opportunities to also test the latest killing technology to be sold for huge profits by some of Israel’s biggest corporations. This is the reality. And it’s not just israel

When Sharon withdrew from Gaza he created not only a huge open air prison, not only an illusion that peace was not possible because of Hamas, but also an experimental killing and torture lab to test Israeli weapons while occasionally mowing the lawn

This is a very important article and I hope it’s very, very widely read. Thank you Dan Cohen

Likewise Just
Back in 1982 my brother was on the side with the greater numbers and far greater military capability. But they still took a substantial hit in terms of casualties (i think around 700 dead and 3500 wounded). He said that any so called military rules of engagement go out the window when a fellow soldier and friend gets killed or seriously wounded. Then it’s all about revenge and anyone or anything becomes a target. I’m sure this happens in every military situation and not just in israel
I didn’t keep track (because it was too sickening) but during Protective Slaughter I wonder if the casualties on the Palestinian side started mounting up even more quickly once the ground invasion started and israel started losing soldiers.

The bots really love high tech and no war is without its selling opportunities afterwards but there’s something about their inability to monetize hasbara that means it’s all for nothing.
And whoring death to other countries- it’s not really kosher, is it ?

“The assault presented an opportunity to expedite the testing process by launching strikes on Gaza’s captive population — which allows Israel weapons makers to market their products as “combat proven.” This places the Israeli brand squarely at the top of the arms industry. ”

I wonder how the IDF would do in a real war with the other side as well armed as their people . Shooting fish in a barrel is great but it’s not the real thing.

Ukrainian soldiers said separatist forces were ill-equipped and ill-disciplined. Russian forces, by contrast, were well organised, with much better weapons than the underfunded Kiev troops.These included fearsome Uragan rockets, which can rain red-hot shrapnel in precision strikes from 35km away. “Our soldiers were getting wiped out and they never even saw the enemy,” the presidential adviser said. “It was like a meat grinder

“XLN is a project of the Reut Institute, an Israeli national security and socioeconomic policy think tank that has called on the Israeli government to “sabotage” and “attack” that global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement or what it described as an international Delegitimization Network. ”

I wonder how that’s going.
I’d get Azealia Banks to sing to them. They are so deluded.

If you remember the history of the twentieh century, the Spanish Civil War was used by the Germans to test weaponry and tactics later used during WWII. From the dive-bombing Stukas to the terror bombing at Guernica, the war was a testing ground without regard to the numbers slaughtered except as selling points for arms manufacturers. Isn’t this really the same? Only this time this weaponry is sold on the open market after being “tested” for efficacy on a defenceless population. They have learned well from their ideological forbears .

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